Monday, August 31, 2015

Shake the Earth

Shake the EarthWritten and performed by Lousine Shamamian
Presented by Arev Productions, Inc., in association with The New York
International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC
Directed by Misti B. Wills

Nothing’s more interesting than a dramatic
juxtaposition. One of the best sorts is the abutment of the personal and the historical.
It can put our lives in perspective. It throws the ordinary into a sort of
dramatic relief.

In her interesting one-woman show Shake the Earth, presented by Arev
Productions in association with The New York International Fringe Festival, Lousine
Shamamian stands on stage and tells us about coming out as a lesbian to her
Armenian mother. Pretty standard for the form, which used to be called
performance art. But she does something more interesting as well: she talks
about the Armenian genocide, relating her great-grandfather’s experiences in
1915.

She begins with her personal story. “There are no
gay people in Armenia”, her mother tells her after reading her diary. She
describes her family, Armenian dishes, her first crushes on girls. She
describes herself as a child reciting poetry for her family: “When you speak,
it has to shake the earth” she’s told.

But she manages to find her way back a few
generations to describe the horrors of 1915. The transitions between the
personal and historic are quick, but they never feel forced or false.

Sometimes she speaks to us in her own person, as the
actress herself. Sometimes she takes on characters, but she never really acts; she keeps them at a distance.
She’s at her best when she takes on the character of her great-grandfather
Georgi as a young man. She shows him going from doors to door looking for his
sister, the only member of his family to survive the massacre by the Turks. She’s
in character, but barely; she can address horror by holding it at bay.

She even makes us laugh during her story of the
genocide, and she manages to do it respectfully. She never looks for sympathy
and she never trivializes. She simply bears witness to the event after the fact.

It’s odd that Ms. Shamamian never makes explicit the
tie-in between the Armenians and gays as persecuted groups. It would make for
an interesting moment. Misti B. Willis’ direction is crisp, but there are still
passages when the show lacks definition, when Ms. Shamamian doesn't make much of an impact. But Shake
the Earth is very good.Steve CapraAugust 2015